.458 Lott - Cartridge History

Cartridge History

The .458 Winchester Magnum was put into production in 1956 and was an immediate commercial success. It was a more economical alternative to the English double rifles that were considered the standard rifle type for dangerous game hunting in Africa. The .458 Winchester Magnum promised to emulate the performance of the .450 Nitro Express in a cartridge designed for a standard length bolt action rifle. However, it soon became apparent that the .458 Winchester Magnum was not performing as anticipated. Several factors contributing to its less than stellar performance in Africa: clumping of its compressed powder charge and use in 20–22 in (510–560 mm) barrel rifles.

Jacques P. "Jack" Lott, a big game hunter and writer, had an adverse encounter in Mozambique in 1959 with an African Cape buffalo in which he sustained injuries. He had been hunting with the then new .458 Winchester Magnum. This experience convinced him that a more powerful cartridge than the .458 Winchester Magnum was required when hunting dangerous game. After the encounter he began a search for a big bore cartridge which would suit his needs perfectly.

Not finding a cartridge that would fit his needs, he designed a cartridge which he felt would meet his requirements in a dangerous game cartridge. Jack Lott's original drawings of the cartridge were done on a napkin at a diner. The first cases for the new rifle cartridge were fireformed from .375 H&H Magnum brass into a chamber by using .458 caliber (11.6 mm) bullets which had their bases re-sized .375-inch (9.5 mm) so as to fit in the mouth of the .375 H&H Magnum. This method of fireforming left the newly formed cases slightly shorter than the parent cases. The resulting cartridge is named the .458 Lott in his honor. A similar method was used by David Miller and Curt Crum to create cases for their early custom .458 Lott rifles. The creation of the cases began with the casting of a .458 in (11.6 mm) bullet with a .375 in (9.5 mm) shank and which weighed around 260 gr. This bullet was seated on a .375 H&H Magnum case containing 30.0 gr (1.94 g) of Hercules 2400 powder with some polyester material used as a wadding to hold the powder charge against the primer. This set-up was then fire-formed in rifle with a .458 Lott chamber. The fire-formed cases were then run through a .458 Winchester Magnum full length re-sizing die with a set off of .125 in (3.2 mm). Once this was accomplished cases were trimmed to 2.790 in (70.9 mm) tumbled clean. Unfortunately for Miller and Crum, this method of fire-forming of brass led to severe gas cutting into the neck area of the .458 Lott fire-forming rifle after only 200 rounds.

In 1989 A-Square became the first company to offer the .458 Lott as a commercial cartridge. At present, the 465-grain (30.1 g) Triad (Monolithic Solid, Dead Tough and the Lion Load) for the .458 Lott cartridge is available from the company. A-Square also championed the successful SAAMI standardization of the .458 Lott cartridge which took place in 1995. They currently offer the A-Square Hannibal and Caesar rifles chambered for this cartridge.